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Eugene

(61,900 posts) Wed Jan 16, 2019, 05:21 PM Jan 2019

Federal agency 'improperly' ignored constitutional concerns before allowing Trump to keep lease to h

LBN thread: Evaluation of GSA's Management and Administration of the Old Post Office Building Lease

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Source: Washington Post

Federal agency ‘improperly’ ignored constitutional concerns before allowing Trump to keep lease to his hotel, internal watchdog says

By Jonathan O'Connell and David A. Fahrenthold January 16 at 3:54 PM

The General Services Administration “ignored” concerns that President Trump’s lease on a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep the lease after he took office, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general.

Trump’s company won the lease several years before he became president. After Trump was elected, the agency had to decide whether his company would be allowed to keep its lease.

At that time, the inspector general found, the agency should have determined whether the lease violates the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which bar presidents from taking payments from foreign governments or individual U.S. states. But it did not, according to the report issued Wednesday.

“We .?.?. found that [the agency] improperly ignored these Emoluments Clauses, even though the lease itself requires compliance with the laws of the United States, including the Constitution,” the report said.

Since that time, Trump’s company has hosted events for several foreign embassies and hosted at least one state governor, Maine’s then-governor Paul LePage (R). Trump has since been sued by Democratic members of Congress and the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C., who allege, in separate lawsuits, that those transactions put Trump in violation of the Constitution.

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